


Sesshin

by White Aster (white_aster)



Category: Ginyuu Mokushiroku Meine Liebe | Meine Liebe
Genre: Community: yaoi_challenge, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:19:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_aster/pseuds/White%20Aster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pair of gentleman occasionally find some time for themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sesshin

\- Title: Sesshin  
\- Fandom: Meine Liebe  
\- Pairing/Character: Naoji/Ludwig  
\- Author: BunnyWhipped  
\- Recipient: Wilhelm Graf von Trokenbeerenauslese  
\- Rating: NC-17  
\- Warnings: Smut. Flowery language. V. light dominance games.  
\- Summary: A pair of gentleman occasionally find some time for themselves.

 

They do not do this often.

They are no longer young men, to be forgiven their youthful indiscretions, and so they must be more circumspect than Naoji had ever dreamed his liaisons would have to be. Though they see each other daily and spend more time with each other than with anyone else, including their wives, they both deem this safe only a handful of times a year. Careful, measured indulgences penned in between the weeks of meetings, committees, paperwork, speeches, parties, social engagements, family duties. The place must be carefully chosen, the reasoning for their private meeting carefully and naturally laid.

Naoji is known to be Ludwig's right hand man, and his place at Ludwig's side at any time of day or night is not questioned. However, they are no longer young men, given to young men's unbridled passions. Any more than every few months, they've agreed, is unreasonably decadent of them. Not only would it distract from their work, not only would they compound the risk of being caught or inciting rumor, but also they would risk becoming...too accustomed to it. As Naoji had once said, becoming accustomed to something makes one inclined to feel _entitled_ to it, and they are men of high standing, looking to move even higher.

There is no place in their lives for young men's carelessness.

\------

"--a ridiculous idea. I cannot understand why he persists in this folly--"

They arrive at Ludwig's townhouse long after dark, the unseasonable rain soaking them in the mere feet from carriage to door. It does not deter Ludwig's measured diatribe. "--would think that he was still an untutored boy. I used to think that one day he would outgrow his naivete, but he seems determined to prove me wrong." A tiny maid takes their cloaks, and Ludwig addresses her without a wasted breath, "Dinner is on time?"

The girl murmurs, "Yes, m'lord."

"Good. Messages?"

"Several arrived this morning and are on your desk in the study, m'lord. M'lady has also sent word that she and the children have arrived at the country house and bid you to 'enjoy the lovely city weather'." The girl carefully does not crack a smile.

Ludwig's lips twist wryly. Naoji smiles as he brushes water from the valise holding his paperwork.

Ludwig turns back to him as if the conversation had never shifted. "Don't tell me that you believed that wonderfully earnest speech this morning."

Naoji shrugs slightly. "I thought that he had a few good suggestions, though his plan as a whole is too radical to gain wide acceptance. However, I thought his ideas on tax relief were awkwardly put but soundly reasoned, and we might do well to support his proposed changes to the import/export tariffs. He proposed them as a goodwill overture to Marchen, but given the trade balance and the particular outputs of your lands--"

"We might turn a tidy profit, yes, I noticed that also. Though I doubt that Orpherus did, or he would have pointed that out when he came begging my support, rather than attempting to appeal to my 'sense of justice'." Ludwig sighs as he heads for the drawing room. "Damn. I hate to _encourage_ the man in his idealistic idiocy."

Dinner is a working affair: paperwork spread out on the mirrored finish of the dining room table, planning and debate peppered with the plates of a punctual dinner of truly exquisite orange-glazed duck. When the dessert dishes have been cleared away, Ludwig shakes his head at a point that Naoji had been unsuccessfully trying to articulate. "I understand, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs will never stand for it. Too many of his advisors are heavily invested in having a source of cheap labor and won't give it up lightly."

Naoji sighs and rubs his temple. "You are probably right. It is a shame, though, that so many peoples' fortunes rest on keeping others poor and desperate."

Ludwig smiles slightly as he starts to gather his papers. "You sound like Orpherus."

Naoji smiles back, tapping pages into square firmly. "There's nothing wrong with a bit of compassion. I know you've not much for those who won't better their own lot in life, but if there is one thing that Orpherus has taught me, it is that sometimes it is not so much a matter of won't as can't, and through no fault of their own."

"Hmm," Ludwig says, his typical response when he agrees but will not admit to agreeing.

Naoji accepts the various stacks of paper and heads for the stairs. Behind him, he can hear Ludwig saying to the staff, "--nothing more. No visitors this weekend, and a cold breakfast in the morning."

Naoji smiles. The servants have long known that those words mean, "wake me before noon on pain of death".

He stops in his own rooms (they are 'his', as much as his bedroom at his own house, as he spends about equal time in both) to drop off a few sheaves of paper and gather a few more from his own files. He vaguely hears Ludwig's tread on the stairs, pacing past on his way to his study. Naoji follows him.

Naoji being in Ludwig's study at all hours of the night and day is by now unremarkable. The servants have found Naoji sleeping peacefully in the study's secondmost comfortable chair, papers and books and half-filled cups of tea strewn about him, more times than he can count. It is convenient, too, as Ludwig's study is connected to his bedroom: an inheritance from an ancestor who shared his tendency to attend to duty at all hours of the day and night.

Naoji closes the study door behind him and turns the key in the lock.

The curtains are already pulled, documents laid out on the desk, the room otherwise unoccupied. Naoji moves through the open door into the bedroom and there finds Ludwig taking off his boots. His overcoat already lies draped over the back of the chair upon which he sits. As Naoji watches, he tosses the second boot after the first and sits back with a sigh, stretching in the careful, measured manner of a man who does not often admit the need of it.

The years have not changed Ludwig overmuch. A touch taller, a touch broader in the shoulders, and regular fencing and riding have filled in a young man's slenderness with a man's solidity. His hair is shorter and has been since his mother's death, now just long enough to pull back into a respectable tail rather than the hip-length mane it had been in his student days. Relaxed in the chair, he looks ten years younger than he did when he was frowning at Orpherus that morning.

Naoji firmly puts work out of his mind as he moves behind Ludwig, his hands finding the muscle between neck and shoulder that has always been tense every time Naoji has reached for it. He digs his thumbs in, working them up the back of the neck, then back down to attack the shoulders again. Muscle shudders slightly under the pressure, and Ludwig's breathing deepens as he works, his head falling a bit back as tension slowly gives way. Naoji is never sure if it's because of his hands or whether Ludwig simply wills himself to relax. Either is equally probable and equally of no consequence.

Ludwig opens his eyes, and Naoji smiles into them.

Ludwig's face relaxes, the smallest of smiles lurking around his eyes. He reaches up, his hands sliding warm around the back of Naoji's neck. He looses the knot of ribbon holding back Naoji's hair, and the dark strands fall forward to brush over their shoulders. He enjoys the length of it, Naoji is certain, though he has never said anything of the sort. His flat frown when Naoji had mentioned once, casually, his thought of cutting it to a more fashionable and convenient length, had said it all. Naoji sometimes thinks that Ludwig misses his own long hair and merely enjoys living vicariously through his aide.

Naoji leans forward, some of the tension in his own back releasing as he rests his chin on Ludwig's shoulder. Ludwig's fingers stroke idly through the strands, a soothing rhythm, and Naoji turns his head into Ludwig's neck with a contented sigh. They stay like this for a long moment, until Ludwig's hand stills and Naoji rouses himself. They are both easily tired enough to fall asleep as they are, but that would be a terrible waste of opportunity. He nudges Ludwig's neck with his nose.

"No sleeping yet."

"Mmm." Ludwig's eyes open again slowly. "So demanding."

Naoji smiles, his arms sliding to round Ludwig's chest. Ludwig is a solid, usually-forbidden weight in his arms. Naoji won't let mere exhaustion claim them now. "Come to bed."

Ludwig chuckles, his fingers sliding out of Naoji's hair and over his shoulders. "Is that an order?"

"Oh, yes."

Their liaisons may lack the desperation of youth, but what urgency they lack they make up in skill and ingenuity. They know each other well and use it to their advantage. No one else in the world, Naoji is rather sure, would dare pin Ludwig's hands to the bed, and likely for no one else would Ludwig allow it. He is not fond of loss of control, but gain of that control is one of Naoji's guilty pleasures, and granting it is one of many compromises that they have come to. Besides, from the arch of Ludwig's body and the quickening of his breath, his mock captivity cannot be too unpleasant. Naoji's mouth on him, tongue and lips and teeth finding all his most sensitive places, seems to be compensation enough. Naoji spreads Ludwig out before him like a feast and loses himself in every shiver and caught breath. The breathless sound Ludwig makes when Naoji mouths the curve of him and takes him in is a victory, the hand escaping his own to slide slightly unsteadily through Naoji's hair, a triumph.

They are no longer young men, to spill themselves and rise to the occasion again a half-dozen times in a night, so Naoji pulls away sooner than he'd like, catching his breath as his eyes slide upwards over Ludwig's naked body. They are both perhaps a bit softer about the middle than the first time they did this, but Ludwig is still handsome enough to make Naoji's breath catch. Especially when his eyes hold this kind of heat.

Ludwig pulls, and Naoji yields, lying beside him and finding his mouth. Ludwig's kiss is reserved, measured, but the hand between them, circling Naoji's prick, is warm, knowing, and slick. Naoji gasps, his eyes fluttering open at the frictionless pressure, brain stuttering over the implication that sends as much heat to his groin as the touch. Ludwig chuckles a bit too knowingly, and Naoji grins, pressing him back, reaching for the bottle of lotion.

It is not often that Ludwig volunteers for this, and Naoji makes a point to savor it as best as he can when he is cradled in a place so incomparably tight and warm. He rocks into Ludwig as slow as his lover will let him, until he cannot bear the heat and the friction and the low, almost inaudible sounds of need that Ludwig is making. He braces himself above, face buried in the crook of Ludwig's shoulder so that he can feel the low buzz of those unvoiced cries against his lips and smother his own when pleasure spikes through him and drags him under.

The feel of Ludwig's hands on him filters through the langour, and Naoji finds the presence of mind to disengage, his lips skating over nipple and collarbone as Ludwig shifts. Caught in the want in Ludwig's eyes, Naoji falls back into the warm, slightly damp impression that Ludwig's body has made in the mattress, his legs falling open around Ludwig's hips. Slick fingers press at and then into him, and Naoji's breath falls out of him in a sigh. It is slightly uncomfortable, as it always is after so long, but he is loose-limbed and sated, and that makes it all the better.

Ludwig's lips press to his temple. "More?"

"Yes. Yes."

Being taken is always a lesson on discomfort transforming into pleasure. So soon after orgasm, Naoji knows that he will not be brought off again, but this is fine. It is enough to be underneath Ludwig, to feel muscle and bone and prick move over and in, to watch him through half-lidded eyes, to arch into him and see the tension build until all Naoji need do is hold steady, be thrust into, and watch as for one brilliant second Ludwig forgets every mask he's ever worn.

Afterward, they lie overheated and damp, slightly apart but curled towards each other. Naoji lets his eyes close. Soon he will rise and dress, put himself into some semblance of order and lean down for a last, lingering kiss to half-asleep lips before removing to his own rooms. Or perhaps instead they will fall asleep curled together, exhausted and content, to wake and wash and emerge the next morning already discussing the letters that need to be drafted, the figures that need to be calculated, the rivals that need to be quelled. And the next night, and the next, they shall perhaps do this all again, before facing the world on Monday with perhaps a bit more lightness to their steps.

But Naoji is used to living in the present, and so he does not think on Monday. He breathes in, and the scent of Ludwig's cologne in the sheets grounds him in the moment, and in that moment he wants for nothing.

~End


End file.
